Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

Enjoy these tips, tricks and insights that answer 100's of questions we've received from radiology and imaging professionals that need help buying, selling, servicing and maintaining their medical imaging equipment: MRI, CT, C-Arm, Digital X-ray, PET/CT and Women's Health. We extend the life of imaging equipment so that health care providers worldwide can extend the lives of patients. This is why we answer your imaging equipment questions.

An acid fire had been burning in Peter’s gut for some time. His debts, his inability to shed the ten pounds he gained from reckless holiday indulgences, his daughter’s new boyfriend with the motorcycle and the skull tattoo…

Worry to the point of ulceration was becoming par for the wildly-spinning, windmill-laden, putt-putt course that was the life of Peter Pendlepine. And to make matters worse, Peter just got to work at the clinic and the OEC 9600 C-Arm won’t boot.

Maybe things aren’t as rough for you as they are for Peter, but every c-arm owner/user knows the frustration that comes with standing in the looming shadow of the proverbial eight ball first thing in the morning. If you’re experiencing the problem that Peter has above (the c-arm one, we can’t help you with your daughter’s boyfriend) pour yourself a nice hi-ball of Mylanta and read on.

Common Symptoms:

doghouse /dôg-haůs/ n. the portion of an OEC c-arm that resides at the top of the central column, features keypads on its sides and a series of varicolored buttons on its top

Now that the terminology is out of the way, let’s take a look at the errors your doghouse might be throwing your way. If your error is one of the following, your problem is likely connected to your SRAM card:

Doghouse displays are blank or circulate squares continuously without progressing to arrows

“Checksum Error”

“Serial Num Mismatch”

Causes:

The boot sector/ operating system on your SRAM card is corrupt (usually from a dead SRAM battery)

Someone experienced problem A or B and tried to fix it with the wrong parts

That’s all very interesting, but why do I need to know this?

We know, we know; you’re wondering why we’ve bothered to tell you something that your service provider already knows. We don’t blame you! So let us lay down the “moral” of the story:

Peace of mind: You can reassure your boss (or your accountant if you are the boss) that the problem is probably with the SRAM card or the SRAM battery and that both of those parts are relatively inexpensive.

Easy parts access: You can also save money by ordering the parts yourself. Block Imaging Parts & Service carries SRAM cards that you can order with as little information as the serial number of your machine and the software part number for your workstation (see below). With this information, these cards can be pre-formatted to interface with your machine. As for the SRAM battery, this is a common, off-the-shelf coin-cell battery. PLEASE NOTE: do not remove the SRAM battery yourself! You could wipe the memory from your machine if this is done incorrectly. Let an engineer remove this then make a note of the battery type and run yourself to the nearest electronics store. This part should cost you less than $10.00.

Prevent data loss: Now you can request that every time your service provider does preventative maintenance on your c-arm they back up the calibration and operation info too. This process involves several tools that only an engineer would have and a certain type of laptop that’s so old, the engineer probably still plays “Pong” on it during his lunch break.

Knowledge is power: Even knowing all this, we can’t say that you’ll never have another reason to ulcerate over your c-arm, but what you will have is a solid knowledge base to communicate from when you contact your service provider. An engineer that knows what he’s walking into is a happy engineer!

If you have more questions about SRAM cards or are currently in need of an SRAM card, please contact us. We’d love to help!

Post a Comment Here

Hi Davide! I work with the service team here at Block. Sorry to hear you're having troubles with your c-arm. I've consulted with our in house c-arm wizards and this is what I found:

"At this point during the bootup, the system is trying to read the disk boot procedure. Your system appears to be unable to read/complete this procedure, and there are three possibilities why: (1) Hard Drive is failing, (2) Communication PCB is not functioning, or (3) the AT Motherboard is not functioning. We'd recommend that you start there."

Thanks for your question, and if you need further assistance feel free to call us at our 24/7 Service Line: +1 877-733-7142.

About Us

Radiology and Imaging professionals come to us when they need help buying, selling, servicing and maintaining their medical imaging equipment: MRI, CT, C-Arm, Digital X-ray, PET/CT and Women's Health. We extend the life of imaging equipment so that health care providers worldwide can extend the lives of patients.